A Thousand Years
by Crown of Black Thorns
Summary: 100 IchiHichi drabbles. Contains lemon, AU, romance, angst, humour, insanity, and more. For example, take 2: "Shiro… Why?" Ichigo's voice was quiet. Soothing to his ears, a something to relieve the pain. "Why didn't you fight back? I didn't want to hurt you. Not like this."
1. Introduction

_Hello, readers. Instead of spending all my time editing A Book of Blackened Tears, I decided to also start a new project on the side. This will follow the 100 themes challenge writing prompts I ran into on the net. This will feature Hichigo and his dear King, of course (OTP time!), and will follow the prompts as most as they can. But I have a tendency to interpret things my own little twisted way, so before. ;D Please enjoy, fave, and review._

* * *

**1. Introduction**

* * *

**I: Fear**

_It was dark._

_There was only a massive abyss of black beneath and above him._

He would be lying if he said he wasn't _scared_.

He would be lying if he said he wasn't absolutely _terrified_ of the threatening mist of shadow that threatened to engulf him, the black pool of pure, unadulterated fear that grasped his body in a vice grip.

It would not let go. No matter how hard he thrashed, no matter how much he howled and shrieked his rage so that it resounded through his own soul and jarred him out of his own mind.

It would not let go, no matter how much he longed for a body of his own, no matter how much he longed for a breath of hope.

For _freedom._

* * *

**II: Emptiness**

To be held in the clutches of something so horrifyingly_ empty_, something with _no name_, something he couldn't even _comprehend,_ was enough to shock him to his core and bring immediately forth the wakings of his essence.

_He had no memories_. He became astutely aware of this as his senses sharpened and he was able to take in the feel and the sensation of the black substance that surrounded him.

_He had no consciousness_. This was changing by the moment, because with each passing second he felt something form inside of him, something physical and constantly changing: a shape to fit the slowly coming-to that was his mind.

He was alive.

He was waking.

He felt the first stirring of life in newly formed veins and a mist that took shape and rose in the wisp-like form of what he could only feel could be properly called... a _body_.

**_Is this... real? Or is it all an empty illusion?_**

* * *

**III: Alive**

He was alive, and he was conscious.

He felt that life in his blood, the black blood that had risen into his new form from the very depths of the dark pool of emptiness that surrounded him, and brought his near-solid hand before his face.

**_I am alive._**

The hand was pale beyond reality, white and completely devoid of colour. It was the stark contrast that made him so strikingly _real _compared to the pitch black waste that gathered in a liquid-like pool at his feet and bathed his incredibly _human_ body in its inky nature.

He was held captive by a hell that had been created exclusively for his own soul.

* * *

**IV: Forgotten**

**_My... name..._**

He had no memories... but somewhere, far off in the distance, there was a ringing trill in his ears that heightened his awareness and woke up something _inside_ of him. Something that was closer to a real memory than he would ever have.

Vaguely he could just remember... _he had a name._

... He could not remember it.

He reached up with a single hand, extended the first pale digit in hopes of penetrating the seemingly unbreakable darkness before him. It gave way to the colourlessness of his flesh, but gushed back in almost immediately, overwhelming and destroying the smallest of pathways he'd just cleared.

* * *

**V: Name**

He wanted to scream.

He wanted to tear his own fingernails through the flesh of his pale chest and hear his own rippled cries of anguish at the devastating _pain _that would rush through his new body.

If only he had a voice; if only he had a determination that would allow him to rip apart the surface of his flesh so easily.

**_My name... my name...!_**

He heard it. Somewhere, off in that far distance that seemed even further away than the black sky that swallowed him.

**_It's... it's..._**

He couldn't hear it. It was muffled, nothing more than a simple garble of a voice that was quickly blocked out by the imminent ebony of this cursed _hell_.

**_Call me. Call my name... set me free._**

And then, loud and clear as the night that cracked before him:

"Zangetsu!"

_He rose from the ebony Tartarus that had once grasped his soul._

_He embraced the warmth and the bright light that suddenly cascaded in from a cracked night ceiling as the familiarity and relief of _life_ flooded through him._

_**My name is Zangetsu.**_

* * *

**VI: Memory**

When he next woke, it was in a world with sideways clouds drifting across that bright blue expanse of sky in garbs of white and with real, wholesome _memories._

Memories of a boy with orange hair and the saddest brown eyes he'd ever seen.

"**That's**..."

The boy. The boy he was now attached to, the one who had grasped the hilt and drawn the blade from his little box of personal hell.

The boy with the brightest smile he'd ever seen and yet somehow seemed never to find a reason to laugh, to show that delightful grin of his.

The boy who was his _master_.

"... _**My**_..."

He clenched a fist and felt black fingernails dig into his palm.

He'd never seen a more miserable boy.

"... _**King.**__"_

The hollow stood, upright on the glass building that stretched lengthily across midair, in this salvation from that black world of his, and looked up towards the sky.

The bright white clouds had darkened, and the blue of the sky had dimmed.

_Rain is coming_.

* * *

**VII: Rain**

The rain splattered upon the glass in intricate patterns of sorrow and seeped into the skin of the hollow, drenching his hair and clothes.

He glared down at it and spat in disgust at the coolness and the wet of it soaking into the fabric of his Shihakusho.

_**I hate how weak it is.**_

The rain was like tears. Tears pouring from the heavens, splattering against the glass and against his slumped form. He lay back against the side of one of those wretched buildings, eyes closed and heart pounding with the adrenaline rushing through his veins.

_**I want to kill something.**_

His fingers curled against his palm in a tight fist and drew blood.

The rain was his master's tears. And tears were weak.

_**... I hate it all.**_

That was the day he learnt to hate the rain.

* * *

**VIII: King**

He pressed a finger against his chin in pondering, running a hand through his colourless hair.

Countless hours spent in this timeless world had given room for much thinking.

"...** King,** **eh**..."

He scoffed. It was a watery sound, rippling through the air in tremors of shakiness and echoing right back to him. What a miserable little inner world this was; suited perfectly for a miserable little king.

"... **I won't stop.**" He took a step forward-his very first step in a world that was practically his own. "**I won't stop...** **King...**"

**_I won't stop until you learn to smile again._**

**_I won't stop until this pathetic rain stops._**

**_Because, all I want is to make you happy._**

**_To make this rain go away._**

**_My King..._**

**__****_... my Ichigo._**

_OWARI_

* * *

_End of chapter one! *floats away*_


	2. Complicated

_And another chapter is out~ this was a little rushed because I want to get some things in my fanfics updated before exams get closer (they're in two weeks ;n;), but it's another theme, another chapter. .w. Enjoy, fave, review, do what you like!_

* * *

**II. Complicated**

* * *

_He was bleeding._

The gash in his side burnt him to the core, spreading white hot fire through his veins and eating at him. He thought he saw—rather, he _felt_—a hateful snarl curl those chapped lips before a metal blade slashed forward.

It was nothing more than a whirl, a blur of deadly silver glistening in the air at an inhuman speed that he _shouldn't_ have been able to dodge, but somehow he managed to duck aside, clutching at his wound, and roll to the ground before it hit his neck.

He couldn't attack.

It was strange, because that was what he was built to do; what he had lived to do. Ever since his awakening in this boy's body, the only instinct that should have been able to grasp him fully was the instinct to invade. To _destroy_. An instinct to take everything that Ichigo loved and to smash it to the ground; to shatter it to pieces; to throw it into a flame that would consume and eradicate anything that the shinigami had once loved or treasured.

It was the best way of seeking revenge. It was what flowed through his blood and the only thing that made Shirosaki the _hollow_ that he was.

The natural instinct to kill and to murder.

The natural instinct to attack and to tear everything to pieces.

Where was that instinct that he had once preached to his King? Where was the instinct that was supposed to be engraved inside Ichigo's soul—inside _his?_ The very impulse for the thrill of blood and war that _he_ had wakened inside the shinigami brat?

Why, _why_, couldn't he fight against this boy that he was once so convinced he had the upper hand over?

He didn't feel the urge to fight anymore. It was a conclusion he had long ago reached and long since denied, even as he watched the sharpened edge of Ichigo's black Zangetsu rush towards him, and instilled in its deadly curve was a craving for the touch of flesh and the dripping of blood.

Shiro felt the metal of the zanpakuto tear through his abdomen; blood flowed up his throat and spilt onto his lip, and he choked. It was burning hot, like molten iron crawling under his flesh and splashing onto the walls of his stomach. His pale hands went down towards the blade, and he grasped it, feeling the cool of the katana and wondering how something so cold to the touch could feel so _hot_.

It was ripping him apart on the inside. It hurt and was sheer _pain_, a pulsing of sharp agony inside his body that was tearing away at him, and somehow, for some odd reason even he himself could not comprehend, he couldn't help but _welcome _it.

He looked down and saw, stretching long and cold in its heartless grip, the black shine of Ichigo's black Tensa Zangetsu.

"Why won't you fight back?"

Shiro's hand gripped at the blade that had impaled him, his touch lingering on hot—no, he had to remind himself, it was _cold_—metal and trailing along, following the gentle curve of the metal until he found his eyes upon a large tanned hand, with its long, callused fingers gripping at the hilt.

There was dirt and blood under Ichigo's fingernails. Did the boy notice that? His eyes followed the path of the arm, up the elbow and over the shoulder, until he was gazing into narrowed amber eyes. Surely the hatred in those usually kind eyes was not meant for him… after all, wasn't he a part of Ichigo's soul?

… _No. He doesn't care about me._

But some part of Shiro wished otherwise, a fragment of his own soul yearning for something he simply couldn't understand. A piece of his spirit that wished that Ichigo would _care_ about him, would speak to him with care and fondness in his voice like he did Zangetsu—or at least the strange entity that had taken Shiro's name for itself.

Didn't Ichigo know that the Zangetsu he knew _wasn't_ his Zangetsu?

Didn't he know that Shiro was there, unable to say otherwise because he _knew_ that his King had no reason to believe a treacherous hollow like himself, because he _feared_ death by the hands of his own master?

Didn't King know who he was?

"K-_King_…" Tensa Zangetsu's blade was long, and half of it had stabbed right through his stomach and out his back. It hurt to lean forward, but he _had_ to. He _wanted_ to. "King…"

He reached forward and grasped, in his colourless fingers, the darker tan of Ichigo's fingers, and to his surprise the shinigami didn't back away or flinch back. Shiro tightened his grip on Ichigo's hand, and he let out an exhausted sigh before letting his head fall.

He couldn't look his king in the eyes.

Ichigo's eyebrows had been furrowed. In concern? No, that was much too much to hope for—Ichigo didn't give a damn about his well-being. Perhaps pity for a heartless creature of the likes of Shiro was the least the hollow could even hope for.

Somehow, looking at those knitted eyebrows and those soft lips that parted as if words were lingering dead and lifeless on them made Shiro feel empty.

"Shiro… Why?" Ichigo's voice was quiet. Soothing to his ears, a something to relieve the pain. "Why didn't you fight back? I didn't want to hurt you. Not like this."

Why? Because it wasn't fair? His King was an honourable man. He knew it when the boy had offered to allow Ulquiorra to cut off his arm and leg because _Ichigo_ had done the same to the Espada under _unfair_ circumstances. He had admired Ichigo's will. His strength of mind. But he had raged at the thought that Ichigo would allow himself such injuries when _Shiro_ had inflicted them upon the Cuatro for _him_, when he couldn't bear to see even a scratch on his precious King.

But Ichigo was young. Innocent. He didn't realize just how unfair the world was.

Just how quickly one's identity and name could be stolen away, how just a person's mere _being_ could twist their fate. Shiro had long ago been resigned to the fact that he was a _hollow_, and that was the way it would stay.

He just wished his King wouldn't hate him so much for it.

"I couldn't fight." And in the end, only the truth was left, and he was sure that the moment those words left his lips, he would be hated even more for them. For the words that betrayed his weaknesses—Shiro knew full well that a nameless, strengthless horse would be useless to a king like Ichigo. "I just… couldn't."

"Why?" Those young eyes were filled with curiosity, with something akin to pain that Shiro didn't understand. He wasn't sure he wanted to. Why would Ichigo feel anything for _him_? And why had the boy come here in the first place? To control him? To confront him? He wasn't sure anymore.

He opened his mouth to speak: "I…" and then he trailed off there.

Shiro thought about it. Why couldn't he fight? Why couldn't he lift a finger against the king that he had once been so eager to tear down and kill? The king that shouldn't _mean _anything to him? Didn't he want Ichigo's body? Didn't he long for his _freedom_?

Then why couldn't he take the steps necessary to take what he knew, albeit wrongly, belonged to him?

"I-I… I just..."

What did he feel for his King? What had made him stop? What had cured the raging instinct inside him that had once made him want desperately to burn down his weak, pathetic, _kind_ king?

Was it affection? Could a hollow even feel such a thing? There was an odd fire burning inside him. Inside the heart that shouldn't even exist. Was it _love_?

All he could offer to Ichigo was a half-crazed, weak grin: the last of his efforts to keep a shred of the being that he _was_. To keep some shard of the remembrance of his old self before his Ichigo.

_".. I-It's kinda complicated, King."_

* * *

_Poor Shiro doesn't understand his feelings for his king... hehe. .w. I'll update when I can! Until then, please fave or review. :)_


End file.
